The French themselves think less about their music than any other of
their pretensions. It is almost a sore subject with them; for it
interrupts their talking, and they had rather hear nothing about it,
except as an accompaniment to a jig. Their ears are, in this respect,
_in their heels_, and it is only the light and giddy that they at all
endure. They have no idea of _cadence_ in any of the arts—of the rise
and fall of the passions—of the elevations or depressions of hope or
fear in poetry—of alternate light or shade in pictures—all is reduced
(as nearly as possible) in their minds to the level of petty, vapid
self-satisfaction, or to dry and systematic prosing for the benefit of
others. But they must be more particularly at a loss in music, which
requires the deepest feeling, and admits the least of the impertinence
of explanation, which mounts on its own raptures and is dissolved in its
own tenderness; which has no witness or vouchers but the inward sense of
delight, and rests its faith on the speechless eloquence, the rich,
circling intoxication of inarticulate but heart-felt sounds. The French
have therefore no national music, except a few meagre _chansons_, and
their only idea of musical excellence is either rapidity or loudness of
execution. You perceive the effect of this want of enthusiasm even in
the streets,—they have neither barrel-organs nor blind fiddlers as with
us, who are willing to pay for the encouragement of the arts, however
indifferently we may practise them; nor does the national spirit break
out from every strolling party or village group, as it is said to do in
Italy. A French servant-girl, while she is cleaning out a room, lays
down her brush to dance—she takes it up to finish her work, and lays it
down again to dance, impelled by the lightness of her head and of her
heels. But you seldom hear her sing at her work, and never, if there is
any one within hearing to talk to.—The French Opera is a splendid, but a
comparatively empty theatre. It is nearly as large (I should think) as
the King’s Theatre in the Hay-market, and is in a semi-circular form.
The pit (the evening I was there) was about half full of men, in their
black, dingy _sticky-looking_ dresses; and there were a few
plainly-dressed women in the boxes. But where was that blaze of beauty
and fashion, of sparkling complexions and bright eyes, that streams like
a galaxy from the boxes of our Opera-house—like a Heaven of loveliness
let half-way down upon the earth, and charming ‘the upturned eyes of
wondering mortals,’ before which the thrilling sounds that circle
through the House seem to tremble with delight and drink in new rapture
from its conscious presence, and to which the mimic Loves and Graces are
proud to pay their distant, smiling homage? Certainly it was not here;
nor do I know where the sun of beauty hides itself in France. I have
seen but three rays of it since I came, gilding a dark and pitchy cloud!
It was not so in Rousseau’s time, for these very _Loges_ were filled
with the most beautiful women of the Court, who came to see his _Devin
du Village_, and whom he heard murmuring around him in the softest
accents—‘_Tous ces sons là vont au cœur!_’ The change is, I suppose,
owing to the Revolution; but whatever it is owing to, the monks have
not, by their return, banished this conventual gloom from their
theatres; nor is there any of that airy, flaunting, florid, butterfly,
gauzy, variegated appearance to be found in them that they have with us.
These gentlemen still keep up the farce of refusing actors burial in
consecrated ground; the mob pelt them, and the critics are even with
them by going to see the representation of the Tartuffe!
I found but little at the Royal Academy of Music (as it is affectedly
called) to carry off this general dulness of effect, either through the
excellence or novelty of the performances. A Mademoiselle Noel (who
seems to be a favourite) made her _debut_ in Dido. Though there was
nothing very striking, there was nothing offensive in her representation
of the character. For any thing that appeared in her style of singing or
acting, she might be a very pleasing, modest, unaffected English girl
performing on an English stage. There was not a single trait of French
_bravura_ or grimace. Her execution, however, seldom rose higher than an
agreeable mediocrity; and with considerable taste and feeling, her
powers seemed to be limited. She produced her chief effect in the latter
and more pathetic scenes, and ascended the funeral pile with dignity and
composure. Is it not strange (if contradictions and hasty caprices taken
up at random, and laid down as laws, were strange in this centre of
taste and refinement) that the French should raise such an outcry
against our assaults at arms and executions on the stage, and yet see a
young and beautiful female prepare to give herself the fatal blow,
without manifesting the smallest repugnance or dissatisfaction?—Æneas
and Iarbas were represented by Messrs. Mourritt and Derivis. The first
was insipid, the last a perfect Stentor. He spoke or sung all through
with an unmitigated ferocity of purpose and manner, and with lungs that
seemed to have been forged expressly for the occasion. Ten bulls could
not bellow louder, nor a whole street-full of frozen-out gardeners at
Christmas. His barbarous tunic and accoutrements put one strongly in
mind of Robinson Crusoe, while the modest demeanour and painted
complexion of the pious Æneas bore a considerable analogy to the
submissive advance and rosy cheeks of that usual accompaniment of
English travelling, who ushers himself into the room at intervals, with
awkward bows, and his hat twirled round in his hands, ‘to hope you’ll
remember the coachman.’ The Æneas of the poet, however, was a shabby
fellow, and had but justice done him.
I had leisure during this _otiose_ performance to look around me, and as
‘it is my vice to spy into abuses,’ the first thing that struck me was
the prompter. Any Frenchman who has that sum at his disposal, should
give ten thousand francs a year for this situation. It must be a source
of ecstasy to him. For not an instant was he quiet—tossing his hands in
the air, darting them to the other side of the score which he held
before him in front of the stage, snapping his fingers, nodding his
head, beating time with his feet; and this not mechanically, or as if it
were a drudgery he was forced to go through, and would be glad to have
done with, but with unimpaired glee and vehemence of gesture, jerking,
twisting, fidgeting, wriggling, starting, stamping, as if the incessant
motion had fairly turned his head, and every muscle in his frame were
saturated with the spirit of quicksilver. To be in continual motion for
four hours, and to direct the motions of others by the wagging of a
finger, to be not only an object of important attention to the stage and
orchestra, but (in his own imagination) to pit, boxes, and gallery, as
the pivot on which the whole grand machinery of that grandest of all
machines, the French Opera, turns—this is indeed, for a Parisian, the
acme of felicity! Every nerve must thrill with electrical satisfaction,
and every pore into which vanity can creep tingle with self-conceit! Not
far from this restless automaton (as if extremes met, or the volatility
of youth subsided into a sort of superannuated still-life) sat an old
gentleman in front of the pit, with his back to me, a white powdered
head, the curls sticking out behind, and a coat of the finest black.
This was all I saw of him for some time—he did not once turn his head or
shift his position, any more than a wig and coat stuck upon a barber’s
block—till I suddenly missed him, and soon after saw him seated on the
opposite side of the house, his face as yellow and hard as a piece of
mahogany, but without expressing either pleasure or pain. Neither the
fiddlers’ elbows nor the dancers’ legs moved him one jot. His fiddling
fancies and his dancing-days were flown, and had left this shadow, this
profile, this mummy of a French gentleman of the old _régime_ behind. A
Frenchman has no object in life but to talk and move with _éclat_, and
when he ceases to do either, he has no heart to do any thing. Deprived
of his vivacity, his thoughtlessness, his animal spirits, he becomes a
piece of costume, a finely-powdered wig, an embroidered coat, a pair of
shoe-buckles, a gold cane, or a snuff-box. Drained of mere sensations
and of their youthful blood, the old fellows seem like the ghosts of the
young ones, and have none of their overweening offensiveness, or teasing
officiousness. I can hardly conceive of a young French _gentleman_, nor
of an old one who is otherwise. The latter come up to my _ideal_ of this
character, cut, as it were, out of pasteboard, moved on springs,
amenable to forms, crimped and starched like a cravat, without a single
tart ebullition, or voluntary motion. Some of them may be seen at
present gliding along the walks of the Tuileries, and the sight of them
is good for sore eyes. They are also thinly sprinkled through the
play-house; for the drama and the _belles-lettres_ were in their time
the amusement and the privilege of the Court, and the contrast of their
powdered heads and pale faces makes the rest of the audience appear like
a set of greasy, impudent mechanics. A Frenchman is nothing without
powder, an Englishman is nothing with it. The character of the one is
artificial, that of the other natural. The women of France do not submit
to the regular approaches and the sober discipline of age so well as the
men. I had rather be in company with an old French gentleman than a
young one; I prefer a young Frenchwoman to an old one. They aggravate
the encroachments of age by contending with them, and instead of
displaying the natural graces and venerable marks of that period of
life, paint and patch their wrinkled faces, and _toupee_ and curl their
grizzled locks, till they look like Friesland hens, and are a caricature
and burlesque of themselves. The old women in France that figure at the
theatre or elsewhere, have very much the appearance of having kept a
tavern or a booth at a fair, or of having been mistresses of a place of
another description, for the greater part of their lives. A _mannish_
hardened look and character survives the wreck of beauty and of female
delicacy.
Of all things that I see here, it surprises me the most that the French
should fancy they can dance. To dance is to move with grace and harmony
to music. But the French, whether men or women, have no idea of dancing
but that of moving with agility, and of distorting their limbs in every
possible way, till they really alter the structure of the human form. By
grace I understand the natural movements of the human body, heightened
into dignity or softened into ease, each posture or step blending
harmoniously into the rest. There is grace in the waving of the branch
of a tree or in the bounding of a stag, because there is freedom and
unity of motion. But the French Opera-dancers think it graceful to stand
on one leg or on the points of their toes, or with one leg stretched out
behind them, as if they were going to be shod, or to raise one foot at
right angles with their bodies, and twirl themselves round like a
_te-totum_, to see how long they can spin, and then stop short all of a
sudden; or to skim along the ground, flat-footed, like a spider running
along a cobweb, or to pop up and down like a pea on a tobacco-pipe, or
to stick in their backs till another part projects out behind _comme des
volails_, and to strut about like peacocks with infirm, vain-glorious
steps, or to turn out their toes till their feet resemble apes, or to
raise one foot above their heads, and turn swiftly round upon the other,
till the petticoats of the female dancers (for I have been thinking of
them) rise above their garters, and display a pair of spindle-shanks,
like the wooden ones of a wax-doll, just as shapeless and as tempting.
There is neither voluptuousness nor grace in a single attitude or
movement, but a very studious and successful attempt to shew in what a
number of uneasy and difficult positions the human body can be put with
the greatest rapidity of evolution. It is not that they do all this with
much more to redeem it, but they do all this, and do nothing else. It
would be very well as an exhibition of tumbler’s tricks, or as
rope-dancing (which are only meant to surprise), but it is bad as
Opera-dancing, if opera-dancing aspires to be one of the Fine Arts, or
even a handmaid to them; that is, to combine with mechanical dexterity a
sense of the beautiful in form and motion, and a certain analogy to
sentiment. ‘The common people,’ says the Author of _Waverley_, ‘always
prefer exertion and agility to grace.’ Is that the case also with the
most refined people upon earth? These antics and vagaries, this kicking
of heels and shaking of feet as if they would come off, might be
excusable in the men, for they shew a certain strength and muscular
activity; but in the female dancers they are unpardonable. What is said
of poetry might be applied to the sex. _Non sat[is] est pulchra poemata
esse, dulcia sunto._ So women who appear in public, should be soft and
lovely as well as skilful and active, or they ought not to appear at
all. They owe it to themselves and others. As to some of the ridiculous
extravagances of this theatre, such as turning out their toes and
holding back their shoulders, one would have thought the Greek statues
might have taught their scientific professors better—if French artists
did not see every thing with French eyes, and lament all that differs
from their established practice as a departure from the line of beauty.
They are sorry that the Venus does not hold up her head like a
boarding-school miss—
‘And would ask the Apollo to dance!’
In three months’ practice, and with proper tuition, Greek forms would be
French, and they would be perfect!—Mademoiselles Fanny and Noblet, I
kiss your hands; but I have no pardon to beg of Madame Le Gallois, for
she looked like a lady (very tightly laced) in the ballet, and played
like a heroine in the pantomime part of _La Folle par Amour_. There was
a violent start at the first indication of her madness, that alarmed me
a little, but all that followed was natural, modest, and affecting in a
high degree. The French turn their Opera-stage into a mad-house; they
turn their mad-houses (at least they have one constructed on this
principle) into theatres of gaiety, where they rehearse ballets, operas,
and plays. If dancing were an antidote to madness, one would think the
French would be always in their right senses.
I was told I ought to see _Nina, or La Folle par Amour_ at the Salle
Louvois, or Italian Theatre. If I went for that purpose, it would be
rather with a wish than from any hope of seeing it better done. I went
however.
‘Oh for a beaker full of the warm South!’
It was to see the _Gazza Ladra_. The house was full, the evening sultry,
a hurry and bustle in the lobbies, an eagerness in the looks of the
assembled crowd. The audience seemed to be in earnest, and to have
imbibed an interest from the place. On the stage there were rich dresses
and voices, the tones of passion, ease, nature, animation; in short, the
scene had a soul in it. One wondered how one was in Paris, with their
pasteboard maps of the passions, and thin-skinned, dry-lipped humour.
Signora Mombelli played the humble, but interesting heroine charmingly,
with truth, simplicity, and feeling. Her voice is neither rich nor
sweet, but it is clear as a bell. Signor Pellegrini played the
intriguing Magistrate, with a solemnity and farcical drollery, that I
would not swear is much inferior to Liston. But I swear, that Brunet
(whom I saw the other night, and had seen before without knowing it) is
not equal to Liston. Yet he is a feeble, quaint diminutive of that
original. He squeaks and gibbers oddly enough at the _Théâtre des
Variétés_, like a mouse in the hollow of a musty cheese, his small eyes
peering out, and his sharp teeth nibbling at the remains of some faded
joke. The French people of quality go to the Italian Opera, but they do
not attend to it. The _tabbies_ of the Court are tabbies still; and took
no notice of what was passing on the stage on this occasion, till the
tolling of the bell made a louder and more disagreeable noise than
themselves; this they seemed to like. They behave well at their own
theatres, but it would be a breach of etiquette to do so anywhere else.
A girl in the gallery (an Italian by her complexion, and from her
interest in the part) was crying bitterly at the story of the _Maid and
the Magpie_, while three Frenchmen, in the _Troisième Loge_, were
laughing at her the whole time. I said to one of them, ‘It was not a
thing to laugh at, but to admire.’ He turned away, as if the remark did
not come within his notions of sentiment. This did not stagger me in my
theory of the French character; and when one is possessed of nothing but
a theory, one is glad, not sorry to keep it, though at the expense of
others.[35]